Families with "granny flats" will also escape the threat of double taxation under the plans, but council tax discounts for second homes will be axed.

Eric Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, will also reiterate that council tax bands will not be reviewed before the next election, due in 2015.

This will be seen as a setback for Vincent Cable, the Business Secretary, who has been pressureing the Coalition to bring in a "mansion tax" on the coutry's most expensive properties – because it would require a full council tax revaluation to succeed.

Currently, local authorities are able to offer households the option of paying off their council tax bills over 10 months. However Mr Pickles will say that in future households will also be allowed to pay off their bills through 12 monthly instalments.

Ministers are hoping that this will make it easier for people on fixed incomes, particularly pensioners, to manage their payments.

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However homeowners who prefer to pay in 10 instalments can still do so if they wish.

Mr Pickles told The Daily Telegraph: "This is a move to help 'middle England', and hard–pressed families up and down the country through these tough times."

Consumer groups welcomed the plans.

A spokesman for Consumer Focus, the customer rights watchdog, said: "This should help hard–pressed consumers to spread their payments and balance their budgets. It sounds sensible."

Mr Pickles will also announce other reforms to review a rule that can mean families being taxed twice if their homes have self–contained "granny flats".

Occupied annexes – often where an elderly relative lives and is looked after by members of their close family – are exempt from council tax.

However, if the relative then moves out, for instance to live in a nursing home, the family can be landed with a second council tax bill. Mr Pickles is also expected to say that council tax discounts for owners of second homes will also be axed.

Councils would be given "flexibility" to reduce or remove entirely the current system of tax relief on second homes, many of which are kept as holiday lets.

At present, discounts range from 10 per cent to 50 per cent and can be worth hundreds of pounds a year.

These discounts can cost councils millions of pounds a year in lost revenue. Earlier this month it emerged that the second home discount costs Brighton and Hove City council alone nearly £180,000 a year.

Councils will be encouraged to offer discounts to householders who pay bills online under the changes.

Mr Pickles said that the measures could potentially cut the cost of average bills – £1,196 for a Band D property – by £20 a year "by treating everyone equally and fairly".

He said: "By removing the subsidised tax breaks for empty homes and second homes, we can cut £20 a year off families' council tax bills.

Councils should make it easier to pay bills, and offer the same discounts for electronic billing that other companies offer as standard – this will cut paperwork and help reduce tax bills." Mr Pickles is also expected to stress that there will no revaluation of the 21 million homes in England before the next general election.

While in government, Labour had drawn up plans to revalue council tax bands in England but they were ruled out by the Coalition last September.

A review would have meant a rise in local taxes for householders because house prices have risen so much since 1991, when the current valuation was carried out.

A revaluation in Wales in 2005 placed about a third of all homes in a higher band.